


when the lines converge (or intersect)

by sevilleteen (avalanches)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Growing Up Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 00:56:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10753368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avalanches/pseuds/sevilleteen
Summary: At the tender age of seven, Choi Seungcheol thinks that Yoon Jeonghan is the prettiest person he has ever met.At twenty-one, halfway through a college degree, with a black belt in Taekwando, Choi Seungcheol still thinks the same.alternatively:an AU where Seungcheol is a little younger, Jeonghan is a little older, they grow up together and Seungcheol's feelings only grow stronger as the years fly past them[written in three parts]





	when the lines converge (or intersect)

**Author's Note:**

> finally _finally_ this piece is out. i struggled so much with writing it, and i contemplated putting it all in one-shot, but i don't think it suits the storyline. this is actually a spin-off from one of [myles'](http://twitter.com/jeonghanesque) thread of AUs that she wanted me to write, and as much as i struggled writing this, i also love writing this. 
> 
> this is a jeongcheol au that has actually been in the works since last year, and the storyline is just so close to my heart. i've contemplated other pairings for this au, but jeongcheol suits it the best in my opinion. 
> 
> as usual, not beta-read, will be back to correct errors. feedback and comments are always appreciated!

Seungcheol meets Jeonghan when he is seven and he thinks that he is the prettiest person he has ever met. 

 

Jeonghan is the son of the Yoons who live two blocks away. He goes to the middle school right across the road from Seungcheol’s elementary school, plays on the basketball team there, and always lounges outside the school gate eating ice-cream with Jisoo. Seungcheol has seen him around before while he waited for his mum to pick him up with promises of cold orange juice and sugar crackers on her lips. He only knew Jisoo then; the older boy was on the youth worship team and played the guitar. 

 

Seungcheol’s parents are hardly religious, but they go to church because it’s a thing in this small town ( _ to make friends, his mother tells him, but she doesn’t talk to anyone there) _ . Seungcheol goes with them, sits through Sunday School, listens to Jisoo teach the Parable of the Mustard Seed in his soft melodious voice. 

 

Jeonghan doesn’t go to church. Seungcheol sees him at the back door sometimes though, a skateboard tucked under his arm, earphones tucked snugly into his ears as he swipes at his phone screen. Waiting for Jisoo to finish up his youth cell admin, no doubt. 

 

He didn’t know Jeonghan’s name back then when he was seven. Jeonghan had black fluffy hair, cut just above his eyebrows, falling in little curls above his ear. With his high cheekbones and the clean cut of his nose, Seungcheol thinks that he looks like an angel, an angel dressed in black ripped jeans and a black biker jacket over a white tank top. Maybe angels dress like that when they are not too busy blessing people and serving God, Seungcheol thinks. 

 

Now, Jeonghan’s sitting in his living room, his hair tied in a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck. He’s growing his hair out for charity, he tells Seungcheol’s mom, laughing at her jokes while twirling the ends around his fingers. He shakes hands with Seungcheol’s dad, sees them off at the door, his hand in Seungcheol’s hair as they wave goodbye to his parents going off to a wedding dinner at the hotel an hour drive away. 

 

Somehow, Jeonghan has ended up as his babysitter. Seungcheol doesn’t understand why he still needs a babysitter when he’s ten, surely he’s old enough. Jeonghan smiles at him, ruffles his hair, tells him his name in a sweet lilting voice. He lets Seungcheol watch the cartoons at nine o’clock after he is done with his homework while he reads on the couch. Seungcheol can’t make out the letters; Jeonghan’s long fingers are splayed over the cover, his fringe falling into his face as he reads. 

 

Seungcheol is more interested in Jeonghan than Tom chasing Jerry on the flatscreen television, but Jeonghan doesn’t know that. He only looks up when the ending credits scroll down on the screen and when Seungcheol lets a yawn escape his lips. He makes clucking noises when Seungcheol upsets his cup of milk, spilling it over the coffee table, but manages to get it before it drips down onto the rug. He sends Seungcheol off to get ready for bed as he takes the cup to the basin, the handle held delicately between his long fingers. 

 

He tucks Seungcheol into bed, smooths the sheets over and gets ready to leave. Seungcheol doesn’t know what had compelled him to do it, but he opens his mouth and the words just tumblr out on their own. 

 

“Kiss me goodnight?”

 

Jeonghan’s eyebrows scrunch together, but he doesn’t question anything. He leans down, brushes his lips against Seungcheol’s cheek, very close to the corner of the younger boy’s lips. Seungcheol’s heart is beating way too fast, his face way too hot, and he prays with all his being that the older doesn’t notice all of that. 

 

“Goodnight, Cheol. Sleep tight.” 

 

Seungcheol dreams of Jeonghan’s fingers, long and gentle, holding his own gently in a green field peppered with white daisies. He wakes up to the smell of bacon and eggs, all traces of Jeonghan gone from his living room, his mother pouring him his favourite glass of orange juice. 

 

He wonders if Jeonghan likes daisies. 

 

\---

 

“Hey, did you know that Chan’s mother remarried?”

 

Seungcheol stills, the heels of his scruffy sneakers digging into the dirt of the playground. Jihoon’s scratching out random patterns in the sandbox just beside the swing where he’s seated at, his attention on his handiwork rather than on his proclaimed best friend. 

 

“Really?” Seungcheol’s not sure how to react. Lee Chan is four years younger than him, three years younger than Jihoon, and his family had just moved into town a few months ago. Everyone had been talking about him and his single mother, how she had the trouble of raising him up all by herself. Seungcheol had cared less about the rumours and more about taking care of the boy with his wide eyes and puffy cheeks. The young boy looks up to him and Jihoon with the utmost adoration, and Seungcheol feels the brotherly instinct in him rise up every single time he’s around the newest addition to their church youth cell group. 

 

“Yeah,” Jihoon kicks sand over his handiwork, smooths it out carefully to create a blank new canvas, “she got married to Jeonghan’s dad. He’s actually moving back to live with them now.” 

 

Seungcheol twists his fingers around the metal chains holding up the swing, watches the rays of the setting sun glint off them in golden lines. He doesn’t know much about Jeonghan, he realises, not that much of the town actually does. They only know he lives with the Hongs, but he never ever attends service or any of the youth cell meetings. He goes to school with Jisoo, the high school right opposite the middle school Seungcheol and Jihoon attend. He’s apparently a family friend, the Hongs tell people, his family isn’t Christian, his family intends to settle down in this town. 

 

It’s actually happening now, Seungcheol realises. He digs his heels into the dirt, pushes himself back, looks up into the sky turning different shades of orange and yellow with the setting sun. 

 

“I don’t care,” he tells Jihoon, his thighs straining with the effort of holding the swing up. Jihoon scoffs, scratches a few words into the sand and stands up to survey his handiwork. 

 

“Keep telling yourself that.”

 

Seungcheol ignores his best friend, kicks off and lets his body lurch forward with the momentum of the swing. He’ll deal with the information later, he decides, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. 

 

He catches the glint of the sunlight off blonde hair, gathered in a low ponytail at the nape of a slim neck just around the corner of the playground. He blinks, once, twice, as Jeonghan rounds the corner, smiling down at Chan’s petite figure as the younger toddles along beside him. The two are holding hands, and Chan is chattering away excitedly as the older nods and smiles indulgently down at him. Seungcheol’s mind throws him back to his dream a year ago, Chan in his coveted spot, and he curses as his feet drag against the ground, slowing his forward swing. 

 

“Seungcheol! Jihoon!” 

 

Chan is running towards them, his chubby face stretched in a wide grin, and Jihoon abandons his stick to catch the younger in a tight hug. Seungcheol’s tongue is heavy in his mouth as Jeonghan walks towards him, a gentle smile curving his lips, the evening sun a burnt orange halo framing his head of blonde hair. 

 

“Cheol-ah,” the nickname is affectionate, loaded with tender playfulness, as Jeonghan reaches forward to ruffle Seungcheol’s hair. “How have you been? Haven’t talked to you recently.”

 

_ Yeah _ , Seungcheol thinks, but he doesn’t duck his head from Jeonghan’s fingers.  _ You always pretend I don’t exist when you wait for Jisoo to finish Sunday school classes with us, you know that he’s my tutor. You don’t see me when you’re waiting for Jisoo, you always care only about him, his stupid pink hair that isn’t pink but isn’t orange either. You only care about Jisoo, and maybe Chan now, but you never cared about me.  _

 

“I’m okay,” he replies gruffly, sliding off the swing, away from Jeonghan’s long fingers that slip through the locks of his hair. “Chan, wanna play a game of tag with Jihoonie and I?”

 

He vaguely registers Jeonghan sighing behind him before the chains of the swing clank with the elder depositing his weight on the seat. He doesn’t care, Seungcheol tells himself as Chan babbles excitedly about wanting to be “it”. He ignores the weird look Jihoon  shoots him, concentrating on speaking to Chan and telling him where they can or cannot hide. 

 

It’s okay if Jeonghan gives attention to someone else, he decides, as he pumps his legs furiously to get away from Chan, pointedly avoiding Jeonghan’s gaze. It very obviously focused on him, not on his new half-brother, but Seungcheol doesn’t turn towards it. 

 

It’s fine, he tells himself, he doesn’t care if Jeonghan doesn’t give him attention at all. 

 

\---

 

Seungcheol absolutely refuses to get a tutor for his horrible math grades in high school. 

 

“Seungcheol, c’mon,” his mother groans, riffling through his math papers, a disaster of crosses and zeros inked in red pen all over the white pages. He ignores her whines, shutting out her voice, concentrating on the dull thud of the bass thudding in his ears as he tries to come up with rap lyrics in his head. 

 

“Choi Seungcheol! Are you even listening to me, young man?” 

 

He groans, yanks a earbud out, shoots his mother a bothered glare. “Does it really matter, ma? I’m not going to be a math major, I’m going to major in History, math won’t even matter by then!” 

 

His mother ignores him. She’s good at doing that. Instead, she punches a number into her phone and shoots him a level look, the one that means business. Seungcheol rolls his eyes, stuffs the earbud back and and pulls his phone up, swiping to unlock the screen. 

 

He ends up at a table in the local Starbucks the following Saturday, his knees knocking awkwardly against Jeonghan’s as the older peers down at the disasters that are his math test papers. Seungcheol hates his math, he hates Starbucks (their drinks were more sugar than coffee, thank you), and he thinks that hates his mother with a burning passion. 

 

_ “You’re meeting your tutor at Starbucks later at two, bring all your test papers.” _

 

_ “Mom, what the hell.” _

 

_ “You better leave in fifteen minutes, if not you’ll be late.” _

 

_ “Mom, I don’t need a tutor.” _

 

_ “Choi Seungcheol, if you say that again, please be informed that your PlayStation 4, brand-new, spanking new, will have a new owner by the end of today.” _

 

_ “Mom, did you really have---” _

 

_ “Fourteen minutes, young man.” _

 

_ “For fuck’s sa---” _

 

_ “Language. I’m going to unplug it now.” _

 

_ “Okay, okay, fine! I’m going!” _

 

Goddamnit, he should have just let her take the PS4. He could have just saved up, worked two jobs over the summer, and purchased another for himself. He didn’t need that gift from his parents, he could earn it just fine just by himse---

 

“Cheol-ah? Do you even know how to expand  _ a squared minus b squared _ ? Don’t they teach you that in middle school?” 

 

Seungcheol squirms, ducks his head and watches the water droplets slide down on the side of his overpriced ice-blended mocha. Jeonghan had insisted on paying, and he hated Starbucks, but he was a broke highschooler and wasn’t going to turn down a treat. The older was tutoring now, putting off applying for universities in favour of helping his juniors out. Jisoo, on the other hand, was leaving in a month, having broken it at youth cell last month. Admittedly, Seungcheol had wondered why they weren’t leaving together; the two had been glued at the hip since he could remember, and Seungcheol has practically lived his entire life in this town. 

 

_ Don’t you want to get out? _ The words are on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t say them.  _ Don’t you want to get out of here, continue to spend time with Jisoo, ignore me, pretend I don’t exist in your life? _ He swallows the words down, flickers his gaze back to the test paper in Jeonghan’s hands and coughs sheepishly. 

 

“What’s that?” 

 

Jeonghan blinks, a scandalised look creeping over his face before his face smooths out into a blank expression. He shakes his head, grabs a sheaf of blank paper and clicks the blue barrel out of the multicoloured pen that he always kept around in his breast pocket. Ever since he had started his tutor job, Jeonghan had taken to wearing collared button-ups with a pocket on the left breast with black jeans. He had started wearing his glasses more often too, the thin frames accentuating his slim face and foregoing the coloured contacts that he had favoured during his high school days. Overall, he looked more presentable, more appealing as a tutor, and to Seungcheol, he just looked more attractive. It makes Seungcheol’s stomach curl uncomfortably, makes his cheeks heat up, and also makes him want to get Jeonghan’s attention more and more than ever. 

 

Having Jeonghan realise how shitty he was at math was not in the plan; Jeonghan had always known about Seungcheol and his polarity with numbers. He had always offered help, but Seungcheol had refused, pretending that it was all okay and all fine. Jeonghan didn’t need to know all these things about him, he hadn’t intended on letting the older know, but the universe has funny ways of making things turn out. 

 

“What do they teach you these days?” Jeonghan sighs, starts scribbling down formulas on the paper. Seungcheol blinks and attempts to cross his legs, flinching as his knee bumped the table, causing the nib of Jeonghan’s pen to skitter across the white surface. He mutters an apology, busies himself with taking a sip of his drink. Ew, sugar, too much sugar. 

 

“Here,” Jeonghan pushes a sheet of paper in front of him, sets a pencil down beside it, “start on these questions. You know how to do these, but I want you to practice. We’ll move onto the formulas after I confirm that you know how to apply these completely.” 

 

Seungcheol takes up the pencil, watches Jeonghan take a sip of his caramel macchiato with an extra pump of syrup, extra whipped cream. He internally cringes at the elder’s drink choice, but his mind makes sure to land his gaze on the speck of white on the corner of Jeonghan’s lips. He blinks, looks down on the paper filled with numbers and alphabets, written neatly across in straight lines with Jeonghan’s print-like hand. Even his handwriting is well put together, just like him, Seungcheol’s mind supplies helpfully. 

 

“Cheol-ah. You got to  _ actually start _ doing those questions, ya know.” 

 

Seungcheol scowls at the older before putting his pencil to the paper, scratching out the first line of the solution to the first question. Jeonghan hums a sound of approval, sucking the whipped cream out of the plastic cup through his straw before making another pleased sound. Seungcheol’s cheeks warm up, and he crosses his legs, a bit more careful this time. Goddamn teenage hormones, they were another thing Seungcheol hated. On top of Starbucks, math, possibly his mother, and also Yoon fucking Jeonghan. 

 

The butterflies in his stomach don’t go away as Jeonghan leans in closer to correct a slight error. Seungcheol hurriedly erases the mistake, glares at the older before scribbling down the right power of x. His cheeks are still warm, his shirt is sticky with his sweat, and his heart thuds a little faster as Jeonghan laughs and kicks at his ankle under the table. 

 

Yep, still the prettiest person on this earth, thinks Seungcheol, ten years after the first time he met Yoon Jeonghan.  

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://temptaetionsv.tumblr.com) <\--- feel free to send in prompts and a ship!


End file.
